FYI: This is a piece of the boulder that's been living in my mouth for far too long.

Thank you JayBee for the tiniest, simplest gesture of your fingers to your lips.

Over a month ago I obligated myself to something I never had any real interest in: I said I had so much to tell you and to watch for me May 31st.

I love this blog. I love that people read what I post here. I love that people both familiar and strange comment and interact with me through this medium but sometimes I feel obligated to write in a manner that pleases and/or addresses "you." I have allowed myself to be swayed by what I think you will think and as a consequence I have chosen silence.

This behavior has choked me and done a disservice to any of you that visit here. Here and now I revoke this action. I have said this not so much for your benefit as for my own edification. I am trying to say I respect this space more than I have shown and we deserve better.

xoxo

It would be silly to think I could summarize or catch you up on all that's been happening since May 31st, let alone January, so I'm not going to try. I have reached the shore of my one year journey. I know what I want from my life. It's tempting to say that I am thoroughly surprised by my desires but this would be false. I knew when I was a teenager - I knew the day I left home at seventeen in my 1980 Chevy Malibu wagon. I have been running from it, denying it or distracting myself from it mainly because I thought I needed something else, something more. How could what I really want be so simple? How does the source of all the heartbreak and bottled grief of the last fifteen years amount to something this uncomplicated? I almost feel foolish. Almost. It's like learning the rules of perfect grammar in order to fully break them.

I realized this year that the apple of my self never fell far from my mother's way of thinking. I absorbed her mindset and got ahead of myself in many ways, made things more complicated or more fantastical than they really needed to be. My notions about starting a business are a perfect example. I thought I needed to have this big multi-million dollar concept and the millions to achieve it. As it turns out I barely need an oven and some mixing bowls.

This idea applies to every area of my life. I no longer require mementos, keepsakes or book markers. All I need, all I want, is to hold the people I love, to feel the experience of this life in my bones, on my skin, in my mind and heart. Food, shelter, love; healing, gardening, art, family.

The best thing I could have done for myself on the brink of last year's depression was to give myself time without pressure, time without obligation and the space to see the space I require. It was so tempting to want to fill this space with commitments and to forget what I set out to learn about myself.

To seal the deal I am having a massive yard sale this weekend; there won't be any panic this time. I will unburden myself of 100's of unnecessary objects that can be turned into cash flow, burn what shouldn't be read ever again and donate what isn't sold. Mostly I'm keeping my bed, sofa and kitchen table.

None of this stuff is my life. I don't have a life with my life, I don't have a relationship with a relationship, a pile of shells or a pile of agates does not replace the beauty that brought it to my palms in the first place. I have held on to absurd amounts of objects to fend off my scarcity fears: fear of being alone, fear of being hungry, fear of death, fear of inaction, fear of failure...

All that I have, all that I am, all that I will ever be is inside me now.

In the garden I met a Dark Queen...

I have SO Much to tell you, watch for me May 31st 2010. In the meantime, a teaser:

Dog Days Are Over
Florence & The Machine
*
Happiness, it hurt like a train on a track
Coming towards her, stuck still no turning back
She hid around corners and she hid under beds
She killed it with kisses and from it she fled
With every bubble she sank with a drink
And washed it away down the kitchen sink

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
The horses are coming so you better run

Run fast for your mother run fast for your father
Run for your children and your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your loving behind you
Can't carry it with you if you want to survive

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
Can't you hear the horses
Cuz here they come

And I never wanted anything from you
Except everything you had
And what was left after that too. oh.

Happiness it hurt like a bullet in the mind
Stuck them up drainpipes
By someone who should know better than that

The dog days are over
The dog days are gone
Can you hear the horses
Cuz here they come

Run fast for your mother and fast for your father
Run for your children for your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your loving behind you
Can't carry it with you if you want to survive

The dog days are over
The dog days are gone
Can you hear the horses because here they come
The dog days are over
The dog days are gone
Can you hear the horses because here they come

beautiful beautifulness

Dosh - "Airlift" from anticon. on Vimeo.

i'm alive, uh huh, so alive...

Musings On A Heart Half Full

...versus a heart half empty speaks to my sincere longing,
the aspect of myself that leaps
and takes chances, the sum of myself that always
says yes (or wants to)! I am a yes girl again. A
heart half full has room enough inside, room enough,
room enough... rumi-enough... a room
of one's own - a space to call my own, a space so big
it's no longer held by space. it's an infinity of
infinites. this phrase/concept touches me in my chest
and belly like a third eye caress. My hands have been
throbbing since my massage last week, so much
is pouring through and out of me. A heart half full
bursts with life and room to grow and imagine and work and live.
I feel a little silly as if I am speaking in cliche or platitudes
but I don't care so much. I love this feeling.
I love walking through the rooms in my life and my
apartment, seeing the sun shining and moving
across here, there; seeing the blue gray shadows covering this, that.
Breathing deeply, feeling fully this gratitude I have for my life,
for clean water and shelter and bleeding hearts and
purple satin-y Iris and little bird skeletons. I could (and will) and will
go on and on like horses over the hills.
I feel wildly free with my half full
heart.

Thinking I was it's lover the arms of a tree lifted me...

A few days ago I began a love affair.

It was a mild and balmy evening, I had been working in the garden and so needed a hot shower to soothe my torn up knees and fingers. I made myself a cup of tea and bare-footed went for a walk...

Around the corner I came upon a splendid pair of flowering crab apple trees. In the early blue light of dusk the white of the petals and soft scent of these trees had such an effect on me the likes of which I have never encountered before. I was pulled to them as if by siren song, lost in a rapture so complete it took my breath away. I walked right underneath their branches and lost sight of the block I live and love on, lost sight of all the buildings and traffic contained in this neighborhood. I looked up into their arms and saw only the pale sky turning velvety, awash in white blossoms.

I physically needed, almost suddenly craved, a closeness with these beings. So I stood on a nearby ledge and pushed myself further into their canopy, falling madly in love in an instant. I was wearing a strappy little shirt so my shoulders and neck were near bare... I leaned into the soft scent of the blossoms and felt the gentle caress of flowers on my cheeks and lips and eyes. It felt like the touch of a lover. I started to smile, enjoying my joy and continued to rub my face and neck and shoulders on the blossoms and green leaves. My breathing was low and deep as I tasted the delicate flavor of the flowers, their fine yellow pistons tickling me. I lifted my hands and barely touching I touched here and there like a baby exploring with gentle hands the soft hair of the person holding them. I cooed and laughed and fell completely and willingly
into this sweet and delicious affair...

If not for the petals that fell onto my feet as I changed out of my clothes before bed I might have taken this moment for a dream.

I found this on Postsecret today. I like what it touches in me. I like the way it's put together. I like what it reveals and what it keeps.

Heart In A Cage is a wellspring of beautiful.

ifyouweretherebeware

Navigating between bold full disclosure and leaving something wisely unsaid is a hallmark of sensitivity and strength.

(4/24) I've been trying to think of a way to tell you more about this image and the words that name it but I'm just not sure how... I will make an attempt as I appreciate the opportunity to tell you more if I can.

The picture was taken last fall while I was reading/savoring a book I have read many times, a book that I feel has shaped me in some ways, called The Delicacy and Strength of Lace: Letters Between James Wright and Leslie Marmon Silko.

On this particular night I was writing myself a letter, trying hard to get my bearings in a life I could no longer discern from a dark night in the woods. The light on the bedside table refers to a concept I have especially loved in fiction and art these last few years. Perhaps you can imagine the significance of light in this context?

This is a solitary image, it speaks to solitude, is solitude. It encapsulates and reflects my need to be a hermit at times, to work out my thoughts, my desire for slowness, patience, rest and germination. In many ways my work is all self portrait: most of what I have to convey starts in my life somewhere. The phrase that I used to name this post is a quotation from a friend I respect and adore very much. I feel it is a beautifully articulate and enormous thing to say. I want to fully embody the sentiment of this phrase.

My bedroom is a sacred place, my bed is an island of repose and although I have invited this or that person in one context or another it is like a river: you never step foot into the same place twice.

Easter

(la resurrection)
by Patti Smith

flower and heart are equal. as one unfolds
the other is closing. the fist of charm.
the dance of fathoms. of voids. of veils.
layer after layer. wall after wall. there
is always more. there is always more after.

the scalloped edges of further valor.
the vigil of soldiers. foot and circular.
the waving tremors of empty warriors.
a thorn in the wound of love. of torture.
another immeasurable pain to suffer.

first dealing w/entry into the spirit.
the wall is pierced and the will assaulted
is vaulted. is shimmied into. is fenced.
fencing defending the sheets of the flesh
winding and binding and then to relax.

seconds of suspension in the pass of pain
wailing, exhaling. passing thru the strange.
this is the formula. the force of the father.
the hand that extends. the heart that is bleeding
harder then harder then silent and beating.

in a space warm and glowing. infinite yet dense.
the tune of chain caught then stretched.
this is the communication of the future.
death is a dance. a ballroom. a glove
an extension of total abandon in/love.